JOIN USIndia will press the US to ease restrictions on sale of its natural gas, when Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will co-chair an annual dialogue between the two nations on Tuesday.
The meeting between Ahluwalia and Moniz will bring down the curtains on the annual India-US Energy Dialogue, which is going to be the first major bilateral engagement between the two countries after the diplomatic spat over the arrest of Indian Foreign Service officer Devyani Khobragade in New York on December 12 last year.
Though the dialogue was initially scheduled to take place in January, it was delayed due to the row over Khobragade's arrest.
The US has so far been restricting sale of its natural gas to countries with which it has not yet inked a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
It has, however, so far allowed conditional export of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from five of its terminals to non-FTA countries, including India.
Ahluwalia and Moniz will review the bilateral cooperation in the field of energy, with particular focus on ongoing engagement in the areas of sustainable growth, electrical grid and power generation cooperation, energy efficiency, oil and gas exploration and investments, including in shale gas and LNG projects, expanding markets for renewable energy technologies, civilian nuclear energy, and addressing barriers to clean energy deployment.